Letter toVolksrecht[1]

Published:First published in Russian in the fourth edition of theCollected Works.

      Published inVolksrechtNo. 75, March 29, 1917.

      Written after March 6 (19), 1917.

      Translated from the German.

      Published according to theVolksrechttext.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1964,

      Moscow,Volume 23,

      pages293-294.Translated:M. S. Levin, The Late Joe Fineberg and and OthersTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      2002

      (2005).You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

VariousGerman newspapers have published adistorted
versionof the telegram I sent on Monday, March 19, to certain members
of our Party in Scandinavia who were leaving for Russia and who asked my
advice about the tactics Social-Democrats should follow.

Mytelegram reads:

“Ourtactics: no trust in and no support of the new government;
Kerensky is especially suspect; arming of the proletariat is the only
guarantee; immediate elections to the Petrograd City Council; no
rapprochement with other parties. Telegraph this to Petrograd.”

Isent the telegram in the name of Central Committee membersliving
abroad, not in the name of the Central Committee itself. Reference is
not to the Constituent Assembly, but to elections tomunicipalbodies. Elections to the Constituent Assembly are, so far, merely an empty
promise. Elections to the Petrograd City Council could and should be heldimmediately, if the government is really capable of introducing
its promised freedoms. These elections could help the proletariat organise
and strengthen its revolutionary positions.

[1]Theletter was published inVolksrechtunder the heading
“Feststellung” (“Factual Note”), and began with the words: “Comrade
Lenin writes...”